In the deep of the forest
by Kylo of the Knights of Ren
Summary: Kylo Ren has been acting strangely around Hux. Is he plotting to kill him, as the redhead seems to think, or is it something completely different?


**NOTES BEFORE READING: PLEASE READ THIS**

 **Hi everyone! First of all: this is my first Star Wars fanfiction AND my first one written in english (which is not my mothertongue), so please be kind with me and, if you see any mistake, do not hesitate and tell me!**

 **This fanfiction has been inspired from this youtube video: /CQSX5mIhA64** **, which is a part of the film "Ivan's Childhood". In order to understand this scene, it is NOT necessary to watch the whole film, but I recommend the vision of this clip if you'd like to have a more realistic idea of the scene.** **Enjoy!**

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 **In the deep of the forest  
**

General Hux didn't know how he should have exactly felt in that moment, aware of Ren's stare on his neck and trying not to lose his own patience over the knight's babbling about his grandfather _Darth Vader_ , no less.

Annoyed?

Pissed off?

 _Flattered_?

That damned Ren had been behaving in a strange way since the Supreme Leader had ordered him to supervise, together with Hux, the troopers and the technicians' work on the final details of the Starkiller base. Although this collaboration had been set with the original intention to make their relationship less conflictual, Ren still gave him the creeps.

In the beginning, they were arguing on literally _everything_. Hux would smirk and use all of his not-so-sneaky sarcasm until Ren stormed off, usually directed back to the ship, where he would fully unleash his rage and damage screens and electrical equipment with his lightsaber.

However, after a few weeks Ren seemed to have found a new way of unnerving the General. More and more often he stayed eerily in silence, probably staring at him under his mask until Hux started to feel quite uncomfortable and sought some kind of excuse to get away from him.

Under Ren's creepy stare, Hux felt _something_ stir inside him. At the beginning he thought that it was only the discomfort, the fear of judgement he had as a child whenever his father, Brandon Hux, challenged him to do something beyond his capabilities; after all, at that time he was only a child and his father had never loved him, since he only saw his son as a future useful resource for the Empire.

Nevertheless, the General soon became used to his stare and started ignoring him or moving away from his presence. He even started to feel almost _proud_ that Ren would stare at his confident gait. Maybe the knight felt envious of his regal presence; after all, Kylo Ren was the son of the princess of Alderaan, but his behaviour was erratic, unpredictable, hot-blooded and he had too often sudden bursts of anger.

Hux would never have admitted it, even to himself, but sometimes secretly wondered if Ren's temperament would have been the same in bed.

Although the redhead had never had a lover, neither a male nor a female one, he thought he would never have been a good one. He was uttermostly selfish and cold-blooded; even if his icy temperament suited him well most of the time, in certain nights loneliness was a burden to him. Hux once wondered if Phasma would have ever be sentimentally interested to him as a human being, but until that moment the only interest shown was to him as a commander, in a oh-so-professional way.

Never loved by his father as a child, never loved by another human being as a man.

Hux was really beginning to convince himself that this would have ever been his destiny.

The possibilities about that condition changing were very slight: it was common knowledge that lovers usually love cuddles and chit-chat after sex, and Hux was not the kind of man to indulge in those pleasantries.

As Ren was the opposite of him, maybe he had more success than him in bed, thought the redhead with a hint of envy – or was that jealousy? Who knows.

However, fate is unpredictable and had soon something in store for him.

One day Ren began to act even in a stranger way.

First of all, he came without his usually creepy helmet, so that Hux could feel his dark gaze wandering on him all the time. Even though, he was more creeped than angered, at least until Ren began to follow him silently as soon as the redhead tried to put some distance from him.

"Is there any kind of problem, Lord Ren?" Asked the General, turning and looking back to his companion.

Ren shrugged, staring intensly at him with his deep, dark eyes. And then came the unexpected.

"I was wondering if you would trust me enough to take a walk with me in the woods near here.".

Hux stared at him in disbelief, then darkly chuckled. "Trusting you would mean trusting the devil, are you planning to do? Murdering me in the middle of the forest?".

A smirk flashed on the knight's face. "Not at all. I was simply suggesting a walk, in order to…cement our newly born friendship. However, if you haven't enough courage, _General_ …" he taunted, looking with nonchalance at his own fingers, then lowering lazily his gaze on the redhead's face, which had grown redder and redder hearing Ren's words. The sentence, even with all its heavy sarcasm, had hit successfully the target: the General's pride.

"Fine! I am not afraid of anything, and I'll prove it by satisfying this lunatic obsession of yours!" Hux growled, facing his so-called ally ( _or was he more an enemy?_ , he silently wondered) and then stomping away towards the woods, hoping Ren would have been staying far enough from him during the walk.

But Ren, annoying as always, reached with his long strides Hux and began walking _arm-in-arm_ with him.

The General was so confused and angered from Ren's lunatic behaviour that he stiffened, giving up all of the diplomacy he still kept up around the knight.

"What the _kriff_ are you doing, Ren?" hissed Hux, his tone growing dark. "Do you even _know_ what people could think if they see us like this –". His sentence was cut from the knight's burning stare and his deep voice.

"I don't care about your dear stormtroopers' opinions. I respond of my actions only to Snoke; not to him, not to your soldiers. You should know it by now.".

And with that, he coldly tugged the General's arm. The man was so shocked that he followed him almost meekly, incapable of understanding anymore what the hell was going on in Ren's mind.

Ren, in the meanwhile, began chatting lazily about some of the last events on the spaceship, without complaining for Hux' obstinate silence. The dark-haired man's annoying conversation came at an abrupt halt in the middle of the forest and the General wondered what had made him stop.

It soon became clear that Ren's volatile attention had been caught by a large tree, whose trunk was broken at half, his upper part not totally separated from his lower one and bent until he reached the soil. The trunk was solid enough to bear on itself the weight of a human being, and Hux began to understand what Ren had in mind.

"Climb up this trunk" suggested Ren, smirking at the man who stood stiff beside him. "You said you weren't afraid of everything, after all."

Hux had been expecting those words and glared at him. How could this grown man act so childish sometimes? Nevertheless, he decided to play along. "All right" the General replied coldly, as he put his right food on the trunk and began walking on it slowly, with his arms open to maintain balance.

Ren was enjoying it, but soon it became clear to him that the game was becoming dangerous. What if the General had fallen from so high?

"That's far enough!" The knight told him, warily. However, Hux was a very stubborn man and he reached the top of the climb, daring only then to look down, with his heart beating like a drum. He never loved heights and he suspected Ren already knew it.

Ren was directly under him, with his arms open and his mantle discarded at his feet. "Jump. I'll catch you!".

Hux stared at him like the man under him had suddenly grown mad. How dared this lunatic to suggest such an embarassing behaviour? How could he possibly expect Hux to jump down into his arms?

The redhead stared at him in disbelief, as his pride made him put one foot in front of the other, always mantaining his balance, in order to climb down all by himself.

The other man smirked, coming closer to the trunk.

"Are you scared?", asked Ren. He already knew of the redhead's fear of the heights, as well as his stubborness.

Hux shaked lightly his head in response, but he was lying. His heart was still beating so strongly that he was almost afraid that Ren could hear it.

Ren was indeed no fool, and went on teasing him. "Then why didn't you do it?".

Hux gritted his teeth but lied again. "No special reason".

He stopped abruptly, glaring at Ren, while the other man's smirk grew wider. _He knew everything, that bastard._

"Did you feel scared? Fine. I forgive you".

 _But I wasn't asking for your forgiveness_ , thought angrily Hux while starting over the descent.

And at last it happened: Hux almost tripped over an asperity of the trunk. He had to make several quick steps, trying to regain his balance, but ended up on the edge of a trench, almost falling in it.

Ren was suddenly behind him with only a couple of strides.

"Let me help you." He said, and offered Hux his hand.

However, the General was too proud, too angry and definitely too embarassed to looked at him.

"I'll manage" he coldly said. Staring at the trench, he tried to step back.

"I'll manage!" Ren repeated with a mocking voice and a little chuckle; then he grabbed him just before the redhead fell.

And then, as soon as the unpredictable knight stood over the trench – one foot on an edge, the other foot on the opposite edge –, keeping Hux between his strong arms, _he leaned on and kissed the General_.

It was the redhead's first kiss and he, stunned and confused, didn't even know how to respond.

Ren's lips were moving in a confident and sensual way on his and the General could almost swear that his soul was being set on fire. Still, he stood stiff in his companion's arms, too afraid of the possible implications of this kiss. What did Ren want from him? Did their own private worlds had to entirely change after this, and how?

Ren probably read all of that fear in his mind, because he stopped for a few moments, growling "You are overthinking, as always. Let go, you frigid, stubborn, beautiful creature!".

 _Ren had called him beautiful._

Hux gasped for air before the knight pulled him in another long and passionate kiss, and this time the redhead shyly moved his hands behind his companion's neck, trying at his best to relax and indulge in that kiss.

The last thing Hux could think of - while Ren shifted him bridal style in his own strong arms and, after a few strides, laid him down on his mantle - was that after all he wouldn't have been alone anymore now.

And then, when the dark-haired man stripped himself and his companion of their clothes, their cries of pleasure echoed in the secret of the forest.


End file.
